


Death Delayed

by NervousAsexual



Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Secondary Drowning, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27007579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: While retaking the castle Preston is almost drowned. Nick helps him through it.
Relationships: Preston Garvey & Nick Valentine
Series: Whumptober 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960987
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Death Delayed

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober prompt #13--delayed drowning

"It's alright." His ears were ringing with the water but he could just make out Nick's voice. "It's okay, I've got you."

Both arms wrapped around the synth's body and held on. Felt like water wrapped around his face and he didn't dare open his eyes.

"It's done. You're safe."

Had to breathe, but the water--couldn't stand much more of this.

"Preston. Breathe for me."

No. No no no no...

"We're not gonna lose you too, Garvey."

That was the general's voice. His eyes opened on their own and through the sting of the salt water he could just make out her face floating over Nick's shoulder. Something covered his vision, something white, he panicked, thrashed out.

"Easy. Just me."

Nick's sleeve. He was just as soaked but he ran the sleeve over Preston's face like that was gonna wipe away the water and his lungs were turning inside out and he couldn't take it anymore and opened his mouth.

Instead of water filling his lungs it was hot, humid air.

The world was spinning around him. First he was seeing the endless expanse of the ocean, stretching as far as he could see, then Nora--the general--her face again, worried, blurry, then Nick's chest, then the mirelurk. God, the mirelurk. He could still feel it, the sharp end of the leg cutting into his back and pinning him under the water and...

"I've got you."

He was lying in the shallows near the shore, half in Nick's arms and half in the water.

"It's over."

The Castle stood in ruins beyond them. The mirelurk queen leaked radiation into the water around them.

"Nora, help me move him."

As they helped him to his feet he saw them. The corpses of half the Minutemen he'd fought with, strewn across the fort.

"Don't look at them," the General said. "Look at me."

But he couldn't. There was nothing else he could see.

The Castle's halls were dark and it frightened him. The green glow of the pip boy made him sick, and he closed his eyes against it. Already he felt sick to his stomach just trying to keep from coughing.

They were right. Everyone who ever told him retaking the Castle wasn't worth it. All that loss, and for what?

"There," Nora said.

Nick didn't answer but they moved him to something soft that tossed up a cloud of dust when they laid him on it. It felt like mud on his face and lungs. He had a handful of Nick's shirt in each hand and held on all the tighter.

"I'm going to go get the generator running. Are you...?"

"We're alright," Nick said. He sat on the bed and Preston couldn't let go of him. "Do what you need to do."

She was walking away. His hands felt numb from holding on. He still couldn't let go. His lungs burned and his eyes burned and he wanted to die.

"Here." In the dark he could hear Nick pull the cork from a bottle. "Drink some of this."

He shook his head. He could still feel the water closing in around him.

"Just a sip. It'll make it easier later on."

The mirelurk queen, pinning him in shallow waters where he could see how near he was to the surface and could just make out the lesser mirelurks massacring the other Minutemen, it couldn't have known what it was doing but it felt like the world itself turning against him all over again...

"Alright, alright." A touch on his back stole his breath again but the metal was Nick's hand and he could fight through that. "Never gets easier, huh?"

"What?"

"Seeing people die like that." Nick's eyes, faintly lighting his face, nodded toward the hall where they'd come in. "You'd think after a hundred years or so of watching the commonwealth take good people you'd get numb to it but you don't. It, uh... It wears on you, though."

"I killed them."

"Preston..."

"They wouldn't have been here if it weren't for me. I..." The cold settled into his bones with the realization. "It would have been better if I died in Quincy with the rest of the Minutemen."

"Nope." Nick's voice was suddenly sharp and hard. "No. We're not playing that game. The second you start that 'It's a Wonderful Life' baloney you're doing the Commonwealth's job for it."

Why hadn't he died with the rest of them? He could see the last general turning to him that night in Somerville Place and telling him to run. And he ran.

Somewhere Nick was still talking but he was past hearing. He'd messed up then just like he'd messed up now. People were dead. He wasn't, even though he should have been. He should have died at Quincy, like the rest of the Minutemen, or before that, when the general was killed. He should have stayed, should have gotten General Becker to run. He would have known how to do this. He wouldn't have gotten half his people killed trying to take back something that was probably better lost.  
"You're not listening to me."

It hurt to breathe.

"Preston."

He was so tired. He didn't want to breathe anymore.

"Garvey!"

His name came so suddenly that he snapped to attention without thinking. In the dark his eyes met Nick's.

"I want you to listen to me." Nick's voice was gentler now. "They knew the risks. They knew it could come down to this, and they chose to follow you anyway. If they'd wanted to they could've stayed at the settlements, or on patrol, or just left."

That much was true, he knew that in his head, but his heart didn't believe that. "Nick, they're dead because of me." Nick ran a hand along his head, knocked lightly in a few places on his back. "What're you...?"

"Trying to figure out how I missed your shell, since they're dead because of some mirelurks.

He tried to cough but nothing moved, and all he could do was gasp. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah. I do. That's why I'm telling you what I wish somebody told me."

He couldn't catch his breath. "Nick?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"I can't breathe..."

"Okay. Sit up for me." Nick helped him up. "You're okay. You sound like you got a little secondary drowning going on, or a panic attack, or both, but we'll get you through it. Try to breathe deep as you can."

Waste of time, he thought. Why keep going? Everything hurt and the Minutemen were clearly better off without him.

"Preston. I need you to breathe for me."

He tried, but there was a rattle in his lungs, like an allergy but so much worse, and the breath turned into a cough which turned into more coughing and he held onto Nick to let him know he was trying. For him, if not for himself.

"Shit," Nick muttered softly. "Okay. It's okay. I've got..." He patted at the pockets of his coat. "One lousy stimpack. Okay. I don't know if this is gonna work, but..."

Preston tried to focus on what Nick was saying but the world was closing in on him. There was nothing outside of him and the terrifying lack of oxygen. Nothing but darkness and the sharp, stabbing pain in his chest.

He jerked awake into light, not sure where he was or what was happening. He smelled dirt, and the ocean, and...

The castle.

"Oh, thank god."

He blinked up into the light and saw Nick looking down at him. His head was resting in Nick's lap, and Nick's good hand rested on his shoulder.

"Had me scared for a bit, kid. Didn't know if a stimpack would do a thing for ya. Now we know."

"The general?" His mind was blurred, like it couldn't decide between picturing the current general or Becker or McGann. "The minutemen."

"Seems like they're doing okay." Nick nodded toward the lights. "Nora got a generator up and running. Doesn't sound like they've run into any more mirelurks."

Mirelurks. Now all he could see was the bodies, torn apart and lying in the dirt. "The ones who died?"

Nick was silent for a moment.

"I don't know," he said at last. "Haven't been out to look and nobody's come in."

Why did he have to wake up?

"Preston." Nick squeezed his shoulder. "I want you to listen to me. Look at me a minute?"

His eyelids were gummed nearly shut. He turned his eyes toward the blur that was almost certainly Nick.

"I know it hurts. People die, and you feel like you could have stopped it. But there's nothing you can do now. Beating yourself up isn't going to change anything." Nick looked away from him and rubbed at his forehead with his bad hand. "You didn't drag them into this. They chose to follow you. That's..." For a moment he was silent, and when he spoke again his throat sounded tight. "That's more than a lot of people get. A choice. So stop pretending they didn't have one. I know it doesn't change much, it's still going to hurt like hell, but you can't live a life like this."

He flinched as something touched his face. Nick's hand, wiping something from his eyes. He was crying, he realized. When had that happened?

"If you want to talk about it, I'm here. Anything else you need, I'm here. But I'm not going to sit here and say nothing while you're making yourself sick over something you had no control over."

"But I did." He pushed himself upright--took in the room, just a dusty, windowless room ringed with beds--and moved to the far end of the bed. He didn't deserve comfort, not like this. "I could have..."

"I know you could have. But they thought taking back the fort was worth it, and you don't gain a thing by pretending you're some omniscient narrator who read three pages ahead and knew what was coming."

He shook his head.

"No? What do you gain, then? What do you get out of it?"

"I can't be like them." Nick said nothing and the words stumbled out of him. "Some of the Gunners at Quincy, I recognized them. They used to be Minutemen. They were doing the same thing we thought we were doing, bringing order to the Commonwealth, protecting people. But they didn't care anymore that people got hurt. I can't be like that. I can't end up so... so..." He folded his arms tightly around himself and closed his eyes. "...totally indifferent to the value of people's lives."

Nick gave a soft chuckle. "Preston, you are the last person I would worry about becoming that."

But it could happen, he thought. It had happened to others.

"The fact that you're so broken up over this ought to tell you something. You think those Gunners cried over the people they lost?"

"Maybe."

"I don't think they did. Like you said, they don't care what it costs as long as they get the job done. You? You absolutely do. Kid, you're the kindest, gentlest person I know. Trust me. I'd let you know if you weren't. They wouldn't have followed you like they did if you weren't."

He couldn't know that for sure. Things changed. He was one hundred percent sure that as they were dying the Minutemen had hated him.

Nick sighed. "I know I'm not gonna change your mind about this. But I want you to know that nobody is half as hard on you than you are. Just... you don't have to do this alone."

Maybe that was true. What did it change?

"I bet those folks in Sanctuary are glad you didn't die."

When he looked over Nick wasn't looking at him but at his own hands in his lap.

"And I'll lay you money that someday--maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday--you'll do the same thing for other folks and they'll feel exactly the same way."

"But..." It didn't help; if anything it made it worse. "I... I still wish I were dead."

Nick gave him a sad smile. "I know the feeling, kid. But it won't last forever." He motioned Preston over. "C'mere."

Preston didn't move, and so Nick came to him and leaned in close and hugged him gently. The tears poured down.

"You're a good kid. I'm glad you're still with us."

That was so, so hard to believe, but part of him desperately wanted to. He held onto Nick's shirt with both hands.

"It's okay," Nick whispered. "It's alright. I got you."


End file.
